Nov 14, 2012

I just received my ASUS C60M1-I today and figured with the lack of information on this board on the internet I'd post my findings.
[caption id="attachment_1602" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I Box Contents[/caption]
In the box you'll get the manual, DVD-ROM with drivers, Powered By ASUS sticker, 2 18" SATA III cables and the I/O Shield. Note the I/O Shield is not like the higher end ASUS boards with the padding.
[caption id="attachment_1596" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I Motherboard[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1595" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I Ports[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1597" align="aligncenter" width="134"] ASUS C60M1-I DDR3 RAM Slots[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1598" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I 6 SATA III 6gb ports[/caption]
First off I was curious if the 8GB maximum was really true. Having 4 8gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1833 sticks awaiting to be put into my primary desktop, I popped a pair into the board. Sure enough the motherboard read them without a hitch:
[caption id="attachment_1603" align="aligncenter" width="269"] Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3-1833[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1604" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3-1833 Stick[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1605" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I BIOS showing 16GB DDR3[/caption]
Also curious is the option of running the ram at 1333mhz. Using 1600mhz and 1833mhz DDR3, you could in theory run it at 1333mhz and keep the timings really nice.
[caption id="attachment_1606" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ASUS C60M1-I BIOS showing 1333mhz Option[/caption]
Next up was seeing if the board supported RAID of any type, this turned out to be false. A little more investigation on the motherboard itself, the South Bridge is the FCH A50M. It also does not support USB 3.0 nor has a native Gigabit controller. In this case ASUS went with a RealTek 8111F Gigabit Controller. I personally have had the 8111e which ran fine and assume this is just a revision of that controller. If someone has more info on it, please let me know. The big points for me were Jumbo Frame support to 9k and Gigabit, both of which are features of the 8111f that is on this board.
Another thing to note is the lack of HDMI port. Not a huge deal with readily available DVI->HDMI adapters, but something to consider if that is make or break. The more expensive/faster ASUS E45M1-I DELUXE has an HDMI port (in addition to USB 3.0), though it does draw more power than the C60M1-I.
Another thing I was curious about was total power draw of the system. Based on what I read the CPU is 9W and the A50M Southbridge uses 4.7W, coupled with 2 4gb Sticks I expected maybe 20W.
The total idle usage (sitting in the bios) is 23W.
The total usage under 100% load is 39W.
I should note this was done with Antec VP-450, a higher efficiency power supply might bring that number down a bit.
[caption id="attachment_1613" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Antec VP-450 450W Power Supply[/caption]
So there you have it, pretty low wattage. For comparison, my Acer Aspire One AO522-BZ465 that I got in June 2011 uses 24W idle in bios and 40W under load.
The last question I had, something I imagine a lot of people would be wondering for NAS purposes is if the PCIe x16 slot (x4 mechanical) would support non-graphics cards. I had a 240GB OCZ Revodrive x4 card that I was hoping to use in this board so I gave it a shot, sure enough it worked without any hassle.
[caption id="attachment_1607" align="aligncenter" width="300"] 240GB OCZ Revodrive PCIe SSD[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1608" align="aligncenter" width="300"] 240GB OCZ Revodrive PCIe SSD card[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1609" align="aligncenter" width="300"] OCZ Revodrive PCIe SSD BIOS[/caption]
I don't have any other PCIe controllers laying around to test, but I imagine you would be ok with them. Options I would consider, maybe Infiniband for a MOSIX SSI or a SAS PCIe x4 controller?
Onto the more fun stuff, the benchmarks.
[caption id="attachment_1616" align="aligncenter" width="300"] jcBENCH Integer Comparison[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1617" align="aligncenter" width="300"] jcBENCH Floating Point Comparison[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1618" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Windows Experience Index Comparison[/caption]
The numbers can speak for themselves, but I should point out the vastly better CPU performance in jcBENCH over the C-50 CPU. The Turbo clock speed of the C-60 really does make a huge difference.
So to summarize:

~23W of usage at idle (BIOS)

~40W of usage at full power

16gb of DDR3 is the max this board will take, not 8gb as mentioned on the ASUS Website

Ram can be set to run at 1333mhz not just 1066mhz like on the website

No HDMI Port

No USB 3.0 Controller

No RAID Controller like that found in the 7xx/8xx/9xx AMD Desktop Chipsets

The PCIe x16 (x4 mechanical) can be used for non-graphics cards

Turbo mode of the C-60 does give a considerable boost in CPU performance